By David Blyweiss, M.D., Advanced Natural Wellness

Even though gout is quite common, it’s one of the most misunderstood forms of inflammatory arthritis.

Gout is caused by a build-up of uric acid in the body, a condition called hyperuricemia (pronounced hyper-yur-i-see-me-ya). This causes solid uric acid crystals to form in joints that results in excruciating pain.

The thing about gout is that the flare-ups occur on an irregular basis. They can happen suddenly once or twice a year. Maybe even less. In chronic cases, flare-ups will occur more frequently. And in either case the symptoms can last anywhere from a few days to a couple of weeks.

By David Blyweiss, M.D., Advanced Natural Wellness

Ask someone what their breakfast consists of and you’ll get a wide array of answers. Some people skip it altogether. Others take the easy route. Coffee with a muffin, bagel or toast. Maybe cereal, a pastry, waffle or breakfast bar.

Then there are the traditional breakfast eaters who go for pancakes, French toast, breakfast sandwiches or eggs with ham, bacon or sausage.

But are any of these the right way to start your day?

By David Blyweiss, M.D., Advanced Natural Wellness

These days just about everyone knows a salty diet is bad for the heart. But did you know that sugar is also linked to heart disease?

In fact, there was one 15-year study that found people who ate more added sugar were more than twice as likely to die from heart disease compared those who at the least of it.

Sugar raises your blood pressure, triglycerides and heart rate. To top it off, we now know that sugars fill your bloodstream with deadly small, dense LDL particles. These are the type of LDL that slip into your arteries and cause the plaque buildup associated with heart attacks.

By David Blyweiss, M.D., Advanced Natural Wellness

It’s estimated that just over 40% of Alzheimer’s and dementia cases in America are caused by 12 modifiable risk factors: physical inactivity, obesity, high blood pressure, smoking, diabetes, excess alcohol consumption, depression, traumatic brain injury, hearing loss, fewer years of education, social isolation, and air pollution.

That’s a long list! But I can whittle it down quite a bit for you.

The top three risk factors on that list are obesity, physical inactivity and high blood pressure. So if you can take care of these, you can greatly reduce your chances of dementia.

By David Blyweiss, M.D., Advanced Natural Wellness

I remember when my relatives, with all of my great aunts and great uncles, would get together for a big holiday dinner. Not long after we finished eating, they would all get up and go outside to take a walk.

You don’t see much of this anymore. That’s a shame, because even a short two-minute walk after eating can lower blood sugar. This, in turn, can help reduce the risk of developing type 2 diabetes. In fact, it even helps people who are at high risk of diabetes maintain better blood sugar and insulin responses after meals.

So even a little bit of walking after a meal is better than none at all. Still, the longer amount of time you spend walking, the greater the benefits. If you can extend the length of your walk to 30 minutes or so, it can cut your risk of diabetes by about 50%.

By David Blyweiss, M.D., Advanced Natural Wellness

We are not eating enough protein in our later years. That’s a fact.

To top it off, as we age, our bodies have a harder time synthesizing protein. So even if you think you’re getting plenty of it in your diet, it won’t have the same affect it had on your bone and muscle mass as it did when you were younger.

This is one of the reasons we become frail and have an increased risk of falls and fractures as we grow older. In fact, we often see that patients who have fractured a hip or another bone aren’t getting enough protein.

By David Blyweiss, M.D., Advanced Natural Wellness

People love their potatoes! The average American eats about 135 pounds of potatoes a year. That’s the equivalent of approximately one potato each day.

Russet potatoes – sometimes called Idaho potatoes – are the most well-known type of potatoes in the United States. We bake them, mash them, fry them, roast them and boil them.

Unfortunately, they’re also starchy and carry a high glycemic load. So they can cause a rapid spike in blood sugar and insulin—which is quickly followed by a sugar crash.

By David Blyweiss, M.D., Advanced Natural Wellness

Back when I was in medical school decades ago, I was taught to treat the patient, not the symptoms…that if you really listened to them tell their story, it would tell you what their medical problem was.

This is a message I took to heart. And as medicine started pivoting towards fitting patients into diagnostic codes for insurance payments and general prescriptionism and less about patient centered care, I became part of the very first group of U.S. physicians ever trained in functional medicine.

That means my focus and treatment plan is personalized to each patient based on their comprehensive history, physical exam, specific concerns, lifestyle, genetics and environmental variables. I give my patients ALL their options… not just drugs and surgery.

By David Blyweiss, M.D., Advanced Natural Wellness

When talking about Alzheimer’s, we often refer to amyloid plaques and tau tangles. The common belief is that these are the underlying cause of the disease – and that if you get rid of them, you’ll be cured.

But it turns out these proteins may actually be a part of your body’s natural immune response against infection. In other words, they are trying to protect the brain from an infectious agent – such as a bacteria or virus.

More specifically we’ve learned over the years that herpes simplex type 1 (HSV-1) – the kind that causes cold sores – never really leaves the body. It lies dormant in your neurons until something triggers it to become active again.

By David Blyweiss, M.D., Advanced Natural Wellness

Back pain is the most common form of pain in the U.S. In 2019, 39.0% of people experienced some sort of back pain. And unfortunately, it hits almost everyone – around four out of every five people – at some point in their lives.

The good news is that most cases of back pain are temporary. About nine times out of ten pain improves without surgery. The bad news is that, during a flare-up, back pain can be excruciating and severely restrict daily activities. And there are a lot of reasons for it.

In most short-term cases back pain is likely caused by muscle strain. This can be caused by numerous reasons; lifting something heavy, repetitive movements, sleeping in the wrong position. You twist the wrong way, sit in the same position for too long or bend too far.